The Japanese blockading fleet gradually closed in behind the Russian ships, compelling Vitgeft to send back his gunboats, mining craft, and reserve destroyers, as our boats were threatening to cut them off; and about eleven o'clock we got a message informing us that the fleet which we should have to meet consisted of six battleships, four cruisers, and seven destroyers, an eighth destroyer, believed to be the _Reshitelny_, having contrived, by her superior speed, to give our boats the slip, and steam away in the direction of Chifu. Meanwhile, the glass was falling, great masses of cloud came driving up from the eastward, and a little breeze from the same quarter sprang up, rapidly freshening and knocking up a sea which soon set even our battleships rolling and pitching ponderously. "Well, so much the better for us," we told each other. Our gunners were by this time quite accustomed to shoot from a rolling and pitching platform, while the Russians had had no such profitable experience; and the heavier the sea, the greater would probably be the superiority of our shooting. It was nearing noon when at length, broad on our starboard bow, a great cloud of black smoke began to show on the south-eastern horizon; and shortly afterward a forest of masts, from the truck of each of which flaunted a great white flag bearing a blue Saint Andrew's cross, began to rise above the sea-line, followed by numerous funnels belching immense volumes of black smoke. The two fleets were nearing each other fast, it was therefore not long before the ponderous bulk of the _Tsarevich_ topped the horizon, with the _Retvisan, Pobieda, Peresviet_ (flying Rear-Admiral Prince Ukhtomsky's flag), _Sevastopol_, and _Poltava_ following. Then came our old friend of the five funnels, the _Askold_, followed by the _Pallada_ and _Diana_, with a hospital ship, flying a Red Cross flag, bringing up the rear but well astern. On the port beam, but well to the rear of the line of battleships, was the cruiser _Novik_--easily distinguished by her three funnels with a single mast stepped between the second and third funnel--and seven destroyers.